


(I've Got A Feeling) This Year's For You And Me

by CantStopImagining



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Christmas, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Holidays, there will be a happy ending I promise!!!!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-10 15:24:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8922337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CantStopImagining/pseuds/CantStopImagining
Summary: “Here’s the thing,” Erin starts, her words coming out in a quick flurry, “this meeting is really important to me and I am this close to getting tenure, at a prestigious college, where I’ve kissed more types of ass than you can possibly imagine, and I don't know why I’m telling you this because you’re a complete stranger but…” she pauses, for breath, Holtzmann imagines, “I need to use your shower.”or, the neighbours-trapped-in-a-snow-storm AU no one asked for.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started like 3 Holtzbert holidays stories at once and struggled to finish any of them (though one I *will* post because it's a present, it just might not be done in time). I unexpectedly got a new job a few weeks ago and it totally drained me of creativity (theater at this time of year is crazy) BUT finally I have written something I feel sort of worth sharing with you guys? Hopefully you haven't had enough of Holtzbert Holiday stories.
> 
> This is based off a short story by Matt de la Peña which I fell in love with and shamelessly stole. Hopefully the concluding chapter will be up very soon. Thank you for reading!

Tuesday, 2pm-ish. That was the last time Holtzmann ate. A hot pocket, to be precise. Slightly stale, slightly burnt. She’d eaten it so quickly that she’d burnt her tongue.

It’s now Thursday.

She opens the fridge, and looks inside, takes an inventory: half a tub of chow mein, leftover from a work lunch; a small bag of carrots, three remaining; two slices of processed cheese; a beer.

Unsurprisingly, nothing new has appeared in the hour since she last looked. She lives alone. Well, aside from her four chinchillas who, at this point, eat better than she does.  
 Even their kibble is beginning to look appealing.

Holtz sighs, closing the fridge and returning to the mess of wires that’s currently taking over the small fold-down table in the dining room. She picks up her long-nosed forceps, and gets to work, ignoring the way her hands are trembling, the hollow feeling in her stomach that’s almost become second nature.

After a long while of tinkering, Holtzmann looks up from a circuit board to notice the red light on her answer machine has been flashing this whole time. Pushing her goggles up onto her forehead, she reaches for the button with the forceps, almost toppling out of her chair at the action.

“Jillian, I wish you’d consider spending the holidays here in San Francisco. I hate the idea of you alone in that awful apartment. Anyway, you have my cell number, call me when you can. I was serious about that offer.”

Running her fingers through knotted blonde curls, Holtzmann sinks back into her old leather office chair. If it weren’t for her damn pride, she could have been spending the holidays with the closest thing to family she had, in Rebecca’s beautiful Victorian townhouse, with enough food to feed a small army.

Instead, she’s spending it alone. In a bare apartment. Penniless. With an empty fridge.

The windows are steaming up, and there’s a thick blanket of snow outside. It’s oddly quiet for the bustling city, and she can’t help but wonder how many people in the small block are still home, how many of them have headed off for the holidays.

Even if she were to think about going to San Francisco, she’d never make it out through this snow. Nor does she have the money for gas.

Holtz wheels her office chair to the other side of the table, and slides a tape into her ancient tape player, a relic from a different life. She presses play, and the apartment fills with the familiar opening chords to an 80s ballad she knows by heart, though she isn’t sure of its name, or the artist. She’s had these mix tapes her whole life, near enough. They are the soundtrack to her life, but she doesn’t care for titles or singers. They’re just songs she likes.

The music is cranked up so loud that she almost misses the knocking. Holtz is singing along, rocking out in her chair, fiddling with her latest project, when she hears it. She considers ignoring it. It’s not like she has any friends in the city, not like it’s going to be anything important. Maybe it’s a neighbour complaining about the noise. Holtzmann furrows her brow, before gliding the chair across the room, practically stumbling out of it and into the hallway to the door.

She looks through the peep hole, before opening the door.

Even despite the vague faintness and dizziness the motion has caused, Holtzmann recognises a pretty girl when she sees one, and can’t help but turn on the charm, leaning against the doorway with one arm draped over the frame.

“Holtzmann’s workshop, where the magic happens, how may I help you,” she drawls, enjoying the way the primly dressed woman’s cheeks flush in response.

Her right hand clenches awkwardly at her side, and her eyes are wide as she introduces herself, “Erin Gilbert, apartment 14B— I heard you were an… engineer? And I know it’s the holidays, and you’re not a plumber _obviously_ , but the apartment super is out of town until the new year, and my shower won’t work and Abby isn’t even here, and I… can you help me?” she finally finishes rambling, cheeks flushed red, and Holtzmann can’t help but grin. There’s something about this Erin Gilbert that she already likes.

“Jillian Holtzmann, nuclear engineer, 100% jazzed to be meeting you.”

Erin’s face scrunches up adorably, the weird action with her hand pausing only so she can tug the strap of her brown purse higher onto her shoulder. Her bangs are ruffled, the rest of her hair pulled back into an untidy ponytail that doesn't match the rest of her business-like outfit.

“You’ll help?”

“M’lady, I’d be honoured,” she says, bowing.

Erin frowns, “uh… okay, great.”

Of course, her stomach chooses now to let out a mighty rumble, which Holtzmann only half manages to hide with a faked coughing fit.

“You okay?” Erin asks, awkwardly stepping from foot-to-foot.

Holtzmann grins, “peachy.”

Once she’s pocketed her keys, Holtzmann follows Erin down to the floor bellow. She watches her walk, posture stiff in a tweed two-piece skirt suit, and pointy-toed high heels that are boarding on ridiculous. Nothing about her outfit looks comfortable, which strikes Holtzmann as odd; it’s midday, four days before Christmas. Surely anyone in their right mind would be wearing a cosy sweater and sweatpants right now, if they didn’t have to be at work.

Holtzmann glances down at her own ensemble: paint-splattered over-alls over a light crop-sweater. Point proven.

Apartment 14B is nothing like the apartment above it. The layout is the same, only in mirror image, but that’s where the similarities end. Where Holtzmann’s walls are painted a sky blue, Erin’s are pale grey. The hardwood flooring is mostly hidden beneath a plush off-white rug, and the minimalistic couch and arm chair combo are yet another shade of grey. Erin leads her towards the bathroom, which is spotless, small shampoo bottles like the type you take on airplanes lined neatly along the windowsill, and towels looking like they’ve never been used.

“The basin won’t run, either,” Erin says, clearly uncomfortable if the way she’s refusing to meet Holtzmann’s eye is anything to go by, “but the kitchen sink is running. Cold water only, though.”

Holtzmann is no plumber. She’s enjoyed tinkering with household appliances since she was a kid though, and tends to go by the philosophy of anything is fixable as long as you can find vaguely the right parts.

Erin leans across her, switching on the shower, though nothing comes out of its head. As she pulls back, her arm brushes against Holtzmann’s chest, and she swallows hard at the unexpected contact.

She really is pretty.

She smells good, too, like coconut.

“The pipes are probably frozen,” Holtzmann says, scratching her chin, “the kitchen, I would imagine, is on a different pipe line, but your boiler’s probably also screwed. Hence no heat.”

“Is there anything you can do?”

Tilting her head to one side, Holtzmann gestures for the cupboard under the sink, “may I?”

Erin nods, backing up as Holtzmann opens the doors and kneels by the cupboard, before her head disappears inside it. She fiddles with the pipes for a while, before re-emerging.

“I’ve turned your stop-cock off, and thankfully your pipes haven’t split,”

“Right… great… thanks?” Erin says, smiling brightly, “so I’ll be able to shower?”

“Oh, no, not at all. The pipes are frozen solid. But your apartment’s not going to spring a leak now, at least.”

Erin’s face falls, and she looks for a second like she might actually cry. She starts to walk anxiously up and down the length of the small bathroom, “I have an important meeting in an hour, which I’ve waited weeks and weeks for, and I can’t even wash my hair. Fantastic. Brilliant.”

“I mean, I could try bringing a blow-torch down here, but if something catches fire…”

“No!” Erin all but shrieks, halting her pacing momentarily, “sorry, Jillian, was it? I’m sorry, I just… this is just typical of my bad luck,”

Holtzmann flinches at the use of her first name from somebody other than Rebecca, but doesn't say anything. She figures Erin’s having a bad enough day as it is. Instead, she fiddles with her glasses, not really knowing what to do.

Until a _genius_ idea hits her.

“You could shower with me?” she blurts, then realises what she’s said, and elaborates, “I mean, shower in my apartment. I wouldn’t be in there. Unless you wanted me to… wash your back. I’d obviously be in the apartment but not…”

She trails off leaving Erin staring at her, wide-eyed and slightly slack-jawed.

“No… thank you,” she eventually says, “thank you for trying to help. Merry Christmas.”

Holtzmann knows that this is her cue to leave, but even so she hovers for a moment longer, watching Erin fold and unfold her hands in their position against her stomach.

“Okie dokie, happy holidays, Merry Christmas, _joyeux noel_!” she eventually says, and then all but runs out of the apartment and back up to her own, as fast as her exhausted, starving body can take her.

-  
Holtz has barely sat down to work after a slice-of-processed-cheese-break, when she hears knocking again. Frowning, she gets up from her chair and moves to the door, peering again through the peep hole. Some kind of strange feeling of relief floods over her when she sees that it’s Erin.

She opens the door and Erin is standing there clutching a brown leather wash-bag, and a towel.

“I actually own towels, y’know,” Holtzmann says, tilting her head to one side.

“Here’s the thing,” Erin starts, ignoring that comment, her words coming out in a quick flurry, “this meeting is really important to me and I am _this_ close to getting tenure, at a prestigious college, where I’ve kissed more types of ass than you can possibly imagine, and I don't know why I’m telling you this because you’re a complete stranger but…” she pauses, for breath, Holtzmann imagines, “I need to use your shower.”

Holtzmann is still sort of caught up in the way this prim and proper woman says the word ‘ass’, but she nods, dumbly.

“For me to feel comfortable about taking a shower up here… with— we’re going to have to share something about ourselves first. Then I’ll feel like I know you and I’m not showering in a stranger’s apartment.”

Holtzmann shrugs, “Holtzmann, Virgo, gluten- _full_ , avid-skier,” she lists, lazily.

“Something real,” Erin tells her, rolling her eyes.

“My middle school nickname was _Ghost Tits._ ”

Erin doesn’t laugh. In fact, she flinches. Holtzmann’s cocky grin falters.

“Fine, I’ll go first,” Erin says, “my boyfriend, Phil, has gone home to Seattle for the holidays, and I was supposed to go with him, but this meeting cropped up, and now I can’t go. And I kind of think he might break up with me over this, but then again, he knows how important to me this is, so hopefully not.”

 _Ah,_ Holtzmann thinks, _a not-so-subtle way of telling me she has a boyfriend_. Holtzmann feels her heart drop all the same.

“How is that more of a _thing_ than me telling you about the nickname?”

Erin glares at her, and she’s only known this woman for, like, fifteen minutes, but damn if she doesn’t already have some kind of hold over her.

“I don’t have any family to spend the holidays with because they’re all dead,” Holtzmann blurts, instead, followed by a loud _HNNNGH._

“I’m sorry,” Erin says, softening.

“The bathroom’s across there,” Holtzmann points, “take as long as you want.”

She settles herself into her chair, feet propped up on the table, and starts stripping wires to distract herself from the sound of the shower running down the hall, and the thumping of her heart in her chest. By the time Erin emerges, Holtzmann is surrounded by little strips of coloured plastic, and a mountain of freshly stripped wires, a nervous habit of hers.

Erin’s hair is wet, but she has a full face of freshly applied make-up, even if it is subtle. She’s dressed in the same ugly skirt as before, tweed and all, with a patterned blouse with a tiny bow-tie at the neck, her jacket hung over her arm, and Holtzmann almost laughs at the realisation that her wash-bag perfectly matches her purse.

“All okay?” Holtz asks, looking up from her mountain of wires.

“Yes, thanks,” Erin looks as though she might say something else, eyeing the junk covered table with a frown, before raising her eyes to meet Holtzmann’s again, “thank you, Holtzmann.”

Something inside Holtz stirs at the sound of her name in that soft, pretty voice.

“My shower’s your shower, Erin,” she tells her, “you can bathe in my place, anytime.”

Erin’s nose scrunches up, but, to Holtzmann’s surprise and joy, she laughs. It’s a beautiful sound, the light of it reaching her dark blue eyes as she looks away.

“I appreciate it,” she tells Holtzmann, offering up a genuine smile, before heading to the door.

“Later, ‘gator,” Holtz calls, as Erin leaves, and she has to stop herself from watching her retreat down the hallway.

-

Holtz spends most of that afternoon and evening working away at various projects, before collapsing in front of the television with the last beer, and a slightly-stale hotdog bun she found in the back of a cupboard.

Ah, dinner.

She’s trying desperately to concentrate on a documentary on sea otters, but her mind keeps drifting back to the girl in apartment 14B. She could blame it on starvation, or sleep deprivation, but she knows better than that. It’s hardly the first time she’s fallen for a straight girl. Not even the first time she’s fallen for someone in less than twenty minutes, either.

It’s not like she’s _fallen for her_ anyway. She’s just pretty. Okay, she’ll go as far as to say beautiful. That’s all though. It’s not like she’s memorised her laugh, or the sound of her voice, or the exact shade of blue of her eyes.

Anyway, Holtzmann has a photographic memory. It isn’t her fault.

Eventually, she falls asleep.

She wakes up to knocking on her door, and for a second, she can’t work out where she is. She’s stiff from sleeping on the couch, and her body protests as she stands, stretching awkwardly. She can hear the chinchillas scrambling around in their homes.

“Mmm… one sec, mama’s gonna answer the door,” she tells them, poking strands of blonde hair vaguely back into her bird’s nest of an up-do.

Erin’s clutching the same wash bag as the day before. She’s dressed in grey slacks, a floral patterned blouse, and a red sweater vest. Her lack of high heels makes her only a half inch or so taller than Holtzmann.

She’s thrilled to see her.

“Um, hi, I don’t want you to think I’m making a habit of this - I’m not - but I… could I maybe use your shower?”

Holtzmann frowns at her, rubbing the back of her head, “sure thing, sweet cheeks.”

Erin blushes, and then falters, looking from Holtzmann’s dishevelled state, the bib of her over-alls hanging around her waist, to the mound of blankets twisted up on the couch.

“Shoot, I woke you?”

Shrugging, Holtzmann steps aside to let her in, “ain’t no thang,” she drawls, yawning, “though I am gonna go change. You know where everything is?”

Erin nods, biting her lip, before heading swiftly in the direction of the bathroom. Holtzmann waits a beat, before going to her room, digging out a t-shirt that passes for clean, and a pair of baggy pants, and changing. She runs a brush through the tangles of her hair - which definitely needs a wash - and scoops it up into its signature style, leaving a few limp curls hanging out front.

By the time she’s done, the faucet in the bathroom is off. She goes to the living area and drapes the blankets over the back, sits down with her feet up on the coffee table. A few minutes later, Erin emerges, looking no different to when she went in, besides her dripping hair.

“We didn’t do the thing,” Holtzmann says, patting the couch cushion beside her.

Erin hesitates, before moving towards her, sitting with space for a whole extra human between them. She sits on the very edge of the couch, her legs together, hands sitting on her knees, like she’s in an office meeting.

“Huh?”

Holtzmann tilts her head to one side, “the unlocking the tragic backstory thing?”

Erin continues to look confused for a second, before she catches on, and frowns, “you’re right, I guess I forgot.”

Not wanting to read too much into this, Holtzmann instead concentrates on digging up something from her childhood memories, not wanting to blurt the first thing to come to mind this time. Eventually, she settles on a suitable anecdote, her lips turning up into a smile at the memory.

“When I was eight, I got thrown out of class for refusing to speak in anything other than rhyme.”

Erin looks at her, her nose doing that adorable scrunching thing once more, “like… Dr. Seus?”

“Exactly like Dr. Seus,” Holtzmann agrees, nodding enthusiastically, “I do not care to draw a diagram, I do not like your math teaching, m’am,”

When Erin laughs, her eyes crinkle in the corners, and her head bobs up and down. Holtzmann can’t drag her eyes away.

“The only time I was ever thrown out of class, it was for punching a kid in the face,” Erin admits, biting at her bottom lip.

“Whoah! Erin, you badass. Tell me more.”

“I guess I… didn’t have the best time growing up. I was bullied a lot as a kid. One day something in me snapped - I was in junior high - and I just lost it. Punched this guy right in the nose.”

Holtzmann’s face goes uncharacteristically soft, and she fights the urge to reach across and touch Erin’s hand, still the fingers that keep clenching and unclenching.

“I bet he deserved it,” she says, instead.

Just like that, the moment’s over, and Erin rises to her feet, tugging her wash bag with her, and retrieving the towel from where it’s tossed over the worn leather office chair. She glances at the contents of the dining table, but again, doesn’t say anything.  
 “I better get off to work,” she says, turning towards Holtzmann, “thanks again for the shower.”

“Working on Christmas Eve Eve?” Holtzmann asks, cocking her head.

“That’s not a real holiday,” Erin tells her, as she heads out the door.

-

Holtzmann kills hours by working on new blueprints, though her shaky hands mean she has to start over more times than she’d care to admit. Her supply of junk metal is running low - it’s been a week since she went on a dumpster dive - and it’s everything she can do not to start taking apart her remaining appliances, just to keep her hands busy. It isn’t like she’s working towards an actual goal, here. That would imply she actually had a purpose.

She barely notices the evening drawing in. It’s hard to keep track of time without meals. Her stomach rumbles as she works away at a final design, pushing her pencil along the metal ruler hastily, finally on a streak.

At around six, she lets the chinchillas out of their home for their daily run. She spends a little while playing with them, watching them skid along the hard-wood after their plastic ball. Then, she returns to her work, though it isn’t long before the eldest starts pestering to be picked up.

With Janeway tucked into the crook of her arm, Holtzmann continues to work on her blueprints, absent-mindedly. The other girls are trained well enough to stay out of trouble, so she doesn’t go to too much effort to watch over them. Besides, there’s very little for them to get into - it isn’t like the cupboards are overfilling with food.

A knock on the door drags Holtz out of her zone, and she immediately panics.

“One sec!” she calls, quickly rolling up the papers from the desk, and then depositing Janeway into the spare room, closing the door quickly behind her.

Unsurprisingly, it’s Erin.

What is surprising though, is her lack of a wash bag or towel, replaced instead with a blue polythene bag.

“Hi,” Erin says, with an almost nervous looking smile.

Maybe Holtzmann’s reading too far into things.

“Twice in one day? To what do I owe this pleasure?”

The smell of whatever’s in Erin’s bag is intoxicating to Holtzmann’s empty stomach, and she is praying to a god she doesn’t believe in that it’s not suddenly going to start gurgling.

“I, uh, bought too much take-out.”

Holtzmann raises an eyebrow, “who delivers in this weather? Santa?”

“It’s Thai,” Erin says, chewing on her bottom lip, “I thought you might like some… as a thank you.”

She watches Erin look toward the dining table, at the rolled up mess of drafting papers, and the strips of naked wires, the plastic coatings still all over the place. There’s a dismantled toaster in the middle of it all, alongside three proto-types that Holtzmann couldn’t even begin to explain to someone like Erin.

As much as she’d love to invite her in, to spend the evening getting to know her better, basking in that warmth that practically radiates off her, she panics.

“I already ate,” she blurts. 

Erin’s face drops a tiny bit, before she recovers, “oh… well, that’s alright, I’ll just leave you a couple of tubs for the fridge?”

Holtzmann wants to say no, but she’s also acutely aware of the fact she hasn’t eaten an actual meal in almost a week, so she nods. Erin gestures towards the fridge and Holtzmann nods dumbly, realising too late what Erin’s about to do.

The chinchillas start scratching at the door of the spare room, right as Erin’s hands close around the refrigerator handle. Her face turns ashen.

“My children!” Holtzmann’s quick to reassure her.

“Your… children?”

Holtzmann opens the door to the spare room, now that the front door is closed, and four fluffy grey bundles come rushing out towards the kitchen.

“Rats?” Erin squeaks, the fridge momentarily forgotten about.

“ _Chinchillas_ ,” Holtzmann corrects, pouting. She scoops the closest one up from the floor and nuzzles into her fur. 

When Reyes crawls onto her mama’s shoulders, Erin looks like she might vomit.

“They’re very clean,” Holtz says, before moving her attention to the chinchilla, rubbing Reyes behind the ears, “aren’t you sweetie? Mama takes good care of her kids.”

Visibly relaxing, if only marginally, Erin returns to the fridge, tugging the handle open and unpacking the food in one swift movement. Then she pauses.

“Uh… Holtzmann… there’s no food in here. At all. Please tell me you don’t live off chips and soda,” she glances towards the stack of (empty) Pringle cans against the wall.

“Ehhhh, I eat out,” she says, waving a hand, and almost laughing at her own joke.

Erin raises an eyebrow, “what about… Christmas Day?” she asks, twisting her face into a frown, “you’re going to eat real food on Christmas Day, right?”

Holtzmann rolls her eyes playfully, leaning against the door frame. In reality, she’s been saving the leftover chow mein for Christmas, though now that Thai is on the cards…

“Sorry, it’s none of my business,” Erin says, quickly, her cheeks reddening. She scoops up the remaining Thai food and heads towards the door, but before she leaves, she pauses, swings back around, shooting adorably awkward finger guns, “happy Christmas Eve Eve,” she says, and then she disappears down the hallway.

-


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, here's the thing, I _did_ have every intention of this being done in time for Christmas, but then Christmas got hella busy and I had to prioritise. I'm really sorry that this is now ending up in that weird period where the Holidays are over but you're still having to read Holiday fic... I know, I know. I suck. Thanks for being patient.
> 
> This was supposed to be the concluding part, but it ran away from me, and I decided to split this instalment into two, meaning there will be one more chapter. I hope to have this done by the end of the week, but I'm not making promises because this is me.
> 
> Thank you for reading and for all your encouragement.

On the morning of Christmas Eve, Erin doesn’t come up to use the shower.

Holtzmann doesn’t _wait for her_ per say, because that would be weird, but she does feel disappointed when it gets to one o’clock and she hasn’t heard any knocks at the door. And then she feels stupid for being disappointed.

Erin, like any normal person, probably has plans for Christmas Eve.

After spending the afternoon playing with the chinchillas (and not only because the work she has left to do is too noisy and she might miss the door… honestly…), at around four, Holtzmann finally gives in. She hasn’t left her apartment building in days, so she decides to put the children away, and go out for a walk, face the snow. She might even stop off at a few of her favourite dumping sites, see if she can find any interesting electronics tossed out, or some scrap metal, treat herself to an early Christmas present.

She doesn’t spend a long time getting ready - though she already showered that morning, deciding that it was bad enough that Erin now knew she had no food, she didn’t need to also be unclean… not that she even gave Erin a moment’s thought, nope - throws on clean pants and an old t-shirt, her signature ‘screw u’ necklace, her leather jacket, gloves, and grabs her large silver duffle.

When she opens the door, her breath catches in her throat.

Erin looks flustered at having the door opened in her face, her cheeks pink, her hair mussed. She’s dressed in a fair isle sweater and plaid skirt, and it’s easily the nicest outfit Holtzmann’s seen her in, no tweed in sight, little brown boots instead of ridiculous heels. 

“I was just going to… leave these here for you,” Erin says, awkwardly. She’s holding a tray of sugar cookies, “I’m a terrible cook but… my mom and I used to always make these on Christmas Eve.”

Holtzmann looks at her, the way she’s anxiously biting on her bottom lip, how her bangs are messy against her forehead, and it’s not like she hadn’t already noticed that she’s beautiful, that she hadn’t already been attracted to her, but now it hits her with a surprising intensity, like having spent time away from her - even just a few hours - had left her feeling like a part of her was missing.

It’s ridiculous. She’s known her a matter of days.

Holtzmann swallows, “gee, Erin, you trying to fatten me up, or what?”

Her voice comes out a lot harsher than she’d intended, the question blunt and unfunny, and she sees the way Erin’s eyes flicker, like she regrets having come here at all, and Holtzmann’s heart sinks.

“Thanks though,” she says, grabbing a cookie in the shape of a tree, and sinking her teeth into it, “weese aw pwee-y gwood,” she tells her with a mouthful.

Erin laughs, though she looks more relieved than anything else.

“Are you heading out?” she asks, tilting her head to one side.

Brushing crumbs off her jacket, Holtzmann shrugs her shoulders, “just thought I’d go for a walk, y’know?”

“You know there’s, like, six inches of snow out there, right?”

Waving it off, Holtzmann pulls a face, “I can take much more than six inches,” she tells her, her eyes going wide when she realises the innuendo, “yikes, that’s what she said.”

Erin’s lets out a low chuckle, and if it isn’t the cutest sound Holtzmann’s ever heard.

“They said on the news not to go out unless you have to - there’s a storm coming,” Erin continues, glancing around nervously, “I guess we’re stuck here alone for the holidays.”

“I thought we already were,” Holtzmann points out, scratching her chin.

Laughing nervously, Erin nods, “true, but I guess you won’t be able to go to the store now.”

Ah, yes, that.

“Eh, I’ll live,” Holtzmann tells her, with a signature wink. She thinks she must imagine the way Erin’s cheeks go pink, the way her gaze droops.

They stand there in silence for a beat too long, Erin still holding onto the tray of cookies, Holtzmann awkwardly holding onto the door. Eventually, it gets to be too much.

“I was think—-“  
“I guess I sh—-“ They both start at once. Holtzmann purposely stops, letting out an exaggerated ‘hmmmm’ instead and tilting her head in question, whilst Erin just trails off.

“I was going to say, uh… I was thinking that maybe you… theoretically… might want to…” Erin bows her head, and Holtzmann can see her grip on the tray of cookies tighten, “do you want to have dinner with me tonight?”

Holtzmann feels like a thousand reindeer are dancing in her stomach, her mouth suddenly going dry. She wants to say yes, of course she does. What’s the alternative? Another night alone, with nothing to eat (she’d eaten the chow mein for dinner once Erin had left, practically wolfed it down, along with two of the duck parcels Erin had brought). Not only that, but god, she really likes this girl. And it’s been a long time since she’s allowed herself to really like somebody.

Because they always broke her heart. Always.

Erin, she knows, won’t be any different.

“Because… I have no food?” Holtzmann clarifies, slowly.

Erin’s teeth sink into her bottom lip, and she adjusts her grip on the tray of cookies, “well… yes, but also because… well I thought there was no point in both of us spending Christmas Eve alone. Not when we don’t have to… you know what, it’s okay, it was a stupid idea. I’ve made everything weird now, haven’t I?”

Holtzmann’s laugh comes out almost like a cackle and she rests her forehead on the arm that’s holding onto the door, laughing until she’s sure she’s going to start crying any second.

“What?” Erin demands.

“Just… weird… weird is like my whole thing. I’ve been weird for _forever_. I basically wrote the book on being weird.”

Erin frowns, still looking offended, but the corners of her lips turn up ever so slightly.

“I’ll come down for seven?” Holtzmann finally says.

“Perfect.”

-

 _It isn’t a date_ , Holtzmann thinks, as she rummages through trash bags of clothes to find something suitable, _it’s just because we’re stuck together, and it’s Christmas Eve._

Eventually, she settles on a nice patterned shirt that’s only slightly crumpled, tucked into her favourite pair of burgundy pants. Noticing an oil stain down one side of the shirt, she quickly throws a vest on to hide it, pleasantly surprised when it actually works well as an ensemble. She re-curls the front of her hair with her curling iron, spending more time on getting the poof exactly right than she has in a long while.

It isn’t a date, but her heart is hammering in her chest as if it might be. Her palms are sweating when she reaches Erin’s door, and she has to take a moment to smooth out her hair, wipe her hands on her pants, before she knocks.

“Hi,” Erin says, when she opens the door.

Holtzmann swallows back nervousness that is so unfamiliar she doesn’t know what to do with it, “hi!”

“Come on in…”

The first thing that strikes Holtzmann is the fact that Erin’s apartment is toasty. Her heat’s on, and it quickly floods Holtz - who can’t afford to switch hers on - with warmth. She already feels out of place in Erin’s perfectly minimalistic home, with the plush rug and soft, muted colours. She has to remind herself not to put her feet up when she sits down on the couch.

“White or red?” Erin asks, taking two glasses down from a cabinet.

“Huh?”

“Wine?”

Holtz frowns, “do you have beer?”

Erin shrugs, puts one glass back, and moves to the fridge, taking out a bottle of craft beer and bringing it through to Holtzmann. Before she has a chance to offer a bottle opener, Holtzmann’s pulling it off with her teeth. She realises, belatedly, that that’s probably not polite.

“I thought we could order Chinese take out…” Erin says, sitting down with a big glass of red wine, “I really wasn’t kidding when I said I can’t cook.”

Suddenly, Holtzmann realises what a bad idea this was, and her heart sinks. She feels panic rising in her. She can’t afford to pay for her share of food. She’d assumed Erin was cooking.

“I left my wallet…” she gestures upstairs with her beer bottle, hoping she doesn’t look as alarmed as she feels.

“You can owe me,” Erin says, shrugging, “I know where you live, remember,” she jokes, dorkily wagging her finger at Holtzmann.

Erin busies herself with finding a take-out menu, and they agree on a few dishes to share. At this point, the very thought of food is making Holtzmann’s mouth water, so she’s very agreeable, letting Erin lead. Erin goes out into the hallway to make the call, and Holtzmann wonders if Erin could be as uncomfortable using the phone as she is, but quickly realises that she’s probably actually just worried that Holtzmann will overhear her credit card details.

With Erin gone, Holtzmann takes a moment to have a proper look around the open plan living and kitchen area. Erin’s kitchen is plain white tiles and yet more grey, her refrigerator sleek and silver - the fancy kind with an ice dispenser. Any other appliances she might have are seemingly hidden behind cupboard doors. Aside from a wine rack, and a coffee press, there’s nothing on the counter top.

The living space is much the same - impersonal, like something out of a catalogue, or maybe a hotel room. There’s a small television on a plain stand, the couch and arm chair, and a floor lamp. No framed photographs, no knickknacks. Definitely no mess.

“It’ll be about forty minutes, sorry.”

Holtzmann looks up at her as she re-enters the room, feeling like she’s been caught doing something she shouldn’t.

“So you can get a delivery person to come out in this storm, but the idea of me going for a walk…” Holtzmann teases.

“It’s their job,” Erin says, rolling her eyes, and sitting down, “besides, it’s only a few blocks away, and their truck has a snow plough.”

“You order from them a lot, huh?”

Her face flushing, Erin looks down at her hands, “I really and truly cannot cook,” she says, a small laugh tumbling out.

Holtzmann manages to swallow the ‘I’ll have to teach you some time’ that almost slips out, grateful that for once she has some sort of filter, though it doesn’t help her to come up with anything else to say, and they sit there in an awkward silence for a while, Holtzmann peeling at the label on her beer, Erin sipping at her wine.

“This is awkward, right?” Erin finally says, wrinkling her nose, “I knew this would be awkward. I shouldn’t have—-“

“No!” Holtz interrupts, “we can reign this in. Just… tell me something?”

“Hmmm?”

She shrugs, “you tell me something, I tell you something, then we’re not strangers anymore, right?”

“Right,” Erin says, slowly. She puts her wine glass down, flexes her fingers against her tights-covered knee, and then scrunches them up again, before Holtzmann remembers to draw her eyes away, “okay, well… I teach at Columbia University,” she says, finally, then scrunches her nose up, “in fact, that is basically _all_ I do.”

“Not true. You also order an exuberant amount of take out, and take more showers than anybody I’ve ever met.”

Erin laughs at this, though her face goes pink, and she shakes her head, taking another gulp of wine.

“What do you do?” she asks, and there’s something about how casual she tries to make it sound that makes it excruciatingly obvious that she’s been wanting to ask since day one. If the way she’s been staring at Holtzmann’s project-covered dining table weren’t enough of an indication of this.

“I’m an engineer," Holtzmann says, rolling her shoulders back and leaning into the back of Erin’s extremely uncomfortable couch.

Erin frowns, clearly waiting for her to elaborate, but when Holtzmann doesn’t, she lets out a breath that sends her bangs flying, “I knew that, remember. What kind of engineer?”

“What do you teach?” Holtzmann counters her question with.

“Particle physics.”

Erin says it as though it’s nothing, something frivolous, though every other scrap of information Holtzmann has gathered about her over the last few days seems to imply the opposite. Still, this takes Holtz by surprise, and she can’t fight back the excitement that mounts in her stomach at this new revelation.

“Whaaaaa?” she gasps, “I _specialise_ in experimental particle physics.”

Staring at her, Erin narrows her eyes, “har har, I know it might not sound like a fascinating subject to you but there’s no need to—-“

“I’m between projects right now - small accident in the lab, apparently putting someone into a vegetative state loses you your position, even if you are CERN-recognised and an MIT graduate…”

Erin’s mouth drops open ever so slightly, “wait… what? You’re not kidding?”

“Nope,” Holtzmann says, popping the ‘p’.

Starting to laugh, Erin shakes her head, takes a long gulp of her wine. Holtzmann watches her, a perplexed, lop-sided smile on her face.

“I’m sorry, but what are the chances of two MIT graduates living in the same apartment block in New York City? You’ll have to show me your work sometime,” Erin’s cheeks are rosy, her hair messy, her lips ever so slightly stained with wine. Holtzmann swallows, forces herself to take a long pull from her beer bottle to stop herself from staring.

“What’s your favourite movie?” Holtzmann finally asks.

Erin laughs again.

“What?”

“I just… I feel like we should be talking about… string theory, or something, not _cinema_.”

“Wuh-wuh,” Holtzmann tilts her head to one side, “you wanna talk shop?”

Shrugging her shoulders, Erin reaches again for her wine, finishing it, “no, I guess not,” she shrugs, “My favourite movie is Pretty Woman.”

-

When they’re interrupted by Erin’s phone ringing, forty-five minutes later, Holtzmann is beginning to wonder if Erin doesn’t have a low-key drinking problem - she’s polished off two glasses of wine, and is starting a third. She holds one finger up as she reaches for the phone and lifts it to her ear.

Holtzmann watches her, the way her teeth sink into her bottom lip, the way her face falls. She does seem awkward on the phone, after all, though Holtzmann supposes that might be the wine.

“The take out is not coming,” Erin says, putting the phone onto the couch and pressing her fingers to her temples, “I guess the snow storm was worse than I thought.” She says it in such a small voice, her face so crumpled that for an awful moment, Holtz thinks she might be about to cry.

“Oops,” Holtzmann says, for lack of anything better to say.

Erin’s face is in her hands, and she looks at Holtzmann through the gap between two fingers, “god, I’m a terrible host.”

“Nah," Holtz assures her, reaching across the small gap between them and rubbing Erin’s arm. Erin’s head bolts up at the contact, and Holtzmann immediately pulls away, trying to ignore the spark of electricity that seems to have made its way straight through her, from her fingers onward. She mourns the loss of contact immediately.

Erin looks at her, and for a second she looks like she’s seeing Holtzmann for the first time, and it’s uncomfortable, being under that kind of scrutiny. Holtz contemplates pulling some kind of stupid face, cracking a joke to fill the awkward silence between them, but it feels too heated, too important to ruin. So she stares back, bug-eyed, hoping Erin can’t hear the way her heart is pounding in her chest.

When Erin’s fingers close around hers, Holtzmann sees it in slow motion, doesn’t quite know what to make of the gesture. She looks from their hands, to Erin’s face, and back down again.

 And then Erin lets go. As quickly as it started, it’s over.

-

They end up feasting on whatever they can find in Erin’s kitchen: three different kinds of cheeses, and a box of rye crackers; grapes and a can of peach slices; left-over Thai food (seriously, how much did she order?!). It’s a meagre meal, but it’s still the most filling one Holtz has had in a long while. Erin polishes off the bottle of wine, and Holtz goes through three beers. Conversation isn’t as awkward as she’d thought it might be, though it helps that Erin turns the television on, and their topics of discussion then focus mostly around what contestants are serving on Chopped. The irony of Erin pulling faces at the concoctions on screen, as they eat, is almost too much, and Holtzmann finds herself spending more time laughing at her facial expressions than she does watching the screen.

It’s easy, familiar, as though they do this all the time. As though they haven’t only known each other a few days. As though Erin isn’t the only person in this whole city who has even given Holtz a second glance.

Somewhere around the end of their second episode, Erin’s phone begins to ring, and she stares down at it vibrating across the coffee table, in between a pot of humous and the last cracker, but makes no move to answer it.

“It’s Phil,” she says, as though that explains why she isn’t answering. Holtzmann raises her eyebrows comically, but doesn’t say anything.

Eventually, it stops.

Holtz waits for what feels like a long time before cocking her head to one side and sticking out her thumb towards Erin’s iPhone, “you gonna call back?”

Erin takes a sip of her wine, furrows her eyebrows, then shakes her head, “no.”

“No?”

Her teeth sink into her lip, and she shakes her head again, “no.”

Holtzmann drops her gaze to Erin’s phone as it starts ringing again, and this time, Erin purposefully reaches for it, not only ends the call, but turns her phone off. Even over the sound of the television, Holtzmann can hear her own heart pounding in her chest, watching as Erin takes the half-empty beer bottle from her, and puts it onto the table, beside her own glass.

There’s a joke here, somewhere, she thinks. Something about a lesbian fixing a straight girl’s plumbing - or failing to - and winding up alone in a dark room with her… but Holtzmann’s brain won’t connect the dots, for once in her life, and she knows, distantly, that it’s inappropriate anyway.

And then she knows nothing at all, because Erin is reaching for her, and her darkened eyes drift from Holtzmann’s, to her lips, and before she has time to react, Erin’s leaning into her. It’s clumsy, her nose collides with Holtz’s, and the first place her mouth lands is decidedly _not_ on Holtzmann’s lips, which makes them both laugh, Erin’s breath shaky, her hands trembling ever so slightly. 

Then, she’s kissing her.

Holtz kind of knows she should push her away, that she shouldn’t be kissing a straight girl, let alone a _straight girl with a boyfriend_ , but Erin isn’t straight, or she wouldn’t be kissing her, and the feel of her lips, the taste of her, the way Holtzmann’s body is tingling as though everything from her mouth to her finger tips, to her toes, is on fire… she doesn’t want to stop. She doesn’t think she could, even if she did want to.

They’ve only known each other a matter of days, but this feels right. It feels inevitable.

Erin kisses her softly, slowly, hesitantly, to begin with, but once she feels Holtzmann relaxing into the kiss, it deepens. She draws one hand up to play with the collar of Holtzmann’s shirt, and the other moves to the back of her head. Holtz settles her hand on the small of Erin’s back, moves the other to her hip, lets her thumb stroke across her hip bone, prominent even through her clothing.

She doesn’t want to start thinking about what’s underneath her clothes. Really, she doesn’t.

Erin pulls back, but her eyes never leave Holtzmann’s, even as she slowly lets go of her.

It’s intense. Holtz has never known kissing to be so _intense._

“God,” Erin breathes, raising her fingers to her mouth, touching her lips with the pads of her fingers.

Holtz doesn’t really know what to do. This is usually the part where she gets thrown out. Then again, usually, that’s because _she’s_ the one who started the kissing, or the inappropriate talk, or whatever. But she didn’t do this. Sure, the _thought_ was there, and she had definitely been _involved_ in the kissing, but it hadn’t been her idea.

She watches Erin curiously, trying to gage her reaction, trying to figure out if it’s time to run off. Her brain won’t form a sentence, and she’s sure her mouth is probably still hanging open. Erin’s not looking at her, though. That never means anything good.

“I have to make a confession,” Erin says, slowly.

 _Here it comes,_ Holtzmann thinks.

“I don’t… Phil and I broke up. That’s why I’m spending Christmas alone.”

Holtzmann raises her eyebrows, but doesn’t say anything. Her knee bumps up and down as she fidgets, not doing well with just sitting still.

“I’m sorry for lying,” she sighs, “we had this fight over this stupid… it’s not important. But he stormed off, and I think he thought I was going to cool down, that I was going to go crawling back to him, and maybe I was going to do that but—“ she lets out a long breath that blows her bangs off her face, and groans.

“Yikes,” Holtzmann finally says, when she realises that Erin isn’t going to continue.

Erin laughs, looking up from where she’s slumped against the coffee table with tears glistening in her eyes, “yikes is right. God, you really remind me of… sometimes…”

“Scooby Doo?” Holtzmann suggests, scratching her chin.

Erin shakes her head, but she’s still laughing, “it doesn’t matter. God. I never do anything impulsive, it’s kind of part of why I’m going to die alone and miserable…”

“You’re not,” Holtzmann insists, and her tone is serious now, which Erin must understand, because she stops laughing, peels her head off the coffee table and forces herself to look at her. Holtzmann clears her throat noisily; she’s so _bad_ at this, and doesn’t make eye contact with her, “I want to kiss you again,” she says, rigidly.

“I want you to,” Erin admits, but she doesn’t look so sure, anxiously clenching her hands together and apart again.

Holtzmann is good at taking things apart and putting them back together again, at making them function better, but she doesn’t know how to do that in this situation. She’s not good at people. Machines are constant, pliable, made of parts that she can decipher and re-arrange to fit how she wants, how they function best. She can’t decipher Erin, can’t break her apart and figure out her mechanisms.

“I’m sorry, Jillian, I think you should go,” Erin finally says, softly, and even though she knew it was coming, even though she’d braced herself for it, Holtzmann feels the hurt bury itself deep in her bones. She nods, grabs her jacket from over the back of the couch, and leaves for her own apartment without so much as a word.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every time I think this is the last of this story... I end up expanding it. There's an epilogue to add onto this, and then that's it. Thank you for bearing with me and putting up with a holiday story that I did not finish during the holidays. I appreciate it.

Holtzmann goes back to her apartment and noisily bangs away at some of the clutter on her table, not really building anything, but making enough noise to drown out the memory of Erin sending her away. Or, at least trying to. She’s conscious of the fact it’s late, and she doesn’t want to put music on, because the last thing she needs is a noise complaint on top of everything else.

After a while, her hands still, and she realises she’s crying. The tears have been dripping down her cheeks and she hadn’t even noticed until her vision begun to go blurry. She drops the metal pipe back onto the heap on the table, and pushes her office chair across to the door of the spare room, sits and watches the children play, but even they seem to be bored of her, even they move away from her when she puts her fingers through the mesh of their home.

Eventually, Holtz goes to bed. She buries herself under a mountain of blankets and listens to the soft thuds of snow hitting the roof, watches it drift by out of the window, illuminated by a street lamp.

It’s gone midnight. It’s Christmas Day.

All she can think about is Erin. Erin’s laugh, the way Erin’s nose scrunches up in embarrassment, the way Erin’s hand clenches when she’s anxious. Erin’s soft lips against hers, Erin’s fingers in her hair. Erin Erin Erin.  
 Erin telling her to go.

She falls asleep with it all playing over and over and over in her head.

-

If there’s one thing Holtzmann is good at - aside from her work - it’s burying feelings. She’s as good at burying them as she is bad at expressing them. So, after allowing herself the night to cry over it, she wakes up a little after ten, with her priorities re-set. It’s Christmas Day, but it’s also just Sunday. She slides out of bed, pulls on a clean t-shirt, feeds the children, and sets about organising her workspace. Holtzmann isn’t exactly the neatest person, in-fact, quite the opposite, but there’s something about sorting through everything, laying everything out on her table tidily that’s calming. It helps to sort out her thoughts, too. Once all the shreds of plastic casing are in the trash, and the junk metal parts neatly away in a bucket under the table, half-finished inventions tucked neatly away in the shelving unit on the corner, Holtz spreads out her blueprints from earlier in the week. She lies her metal rulers and measuring squares out carefully, along with three different coloured pencils, and takes a deep breath before getting stuck in.

Inventions slip from Holtzmann’s fingers like simple brush strokes on a canvas. It’s something to do with the way her brain is wired, something that makes _science_ make more sense to her than anything else. She can create without thinking too hard, without worrying about the end result too much. She quickly loses herself in the sound of metal against metal, in the heat of her blow-torch and the careful wiring of pieces. The code is basic, the circuit boards uncomplicated, but meticulously sculpted. Often she’s careless - _reckless_ , Rebecca calls her - but not today. Today she takes time. She concentrates until the image she sees in her head, reflected on the batch of softly crinkled papers, is alive in metal form, solid and real in front of her. Holtzmann thrives off that feeling of achievement, of creating something from nothing. Even when it’s just a personal project, a pile of junk to anybody else.  
 As she puts the finishing touches to her machinery, the phone rings.

Holtzmann flinches, being drawn involuntarily out of _the zone_ , carefully lying her work down on the table and sliding across to the other side of the room to pick up her boxy retro receiver.

“Jillian, I hope you’re not working.”

Holtz relaxes at the sound of her mentor’s voice, pushing off with her feet, cradling the phone between her head and her shoulder, moving as far as the long spiral cord will let her, and pushing her feet up onto a clear spot on the table, “Merry Christmas!” she says, trying for gleeful, but missing the mark by a small margin.

“Yes,” Rebecca responds, impatiently, “many happy returns. I wanted to ensure you were doing something other than moping around your apartment.”

Once again, Rebecca Gorin’s powers of staring right through Holtz, even from a different state, catch her off guard. Holtzmann runs her free hand through the knotted curls at the back of her head, scratching at her neck.

“I shall take your silence as an affirmative that that is not the case. I do wish you had taken up my invitation to—“

“There’s a snow storm,” Holtzmann interrupts, “I’ve got the Muppets loaded up on Netflix, and turkey slices in the freezer - I’m good.”

Rebecca pauses, and Holtz wonders whether she bought the lie, doubts it.

“Very well. Look after yourself. I intend to visit early in the New Year - fax over some blueprints, you know how I enjoy seeing what you’re up to.”

“Will do,” Holtzmann smiles, despite knowing Rebecca won’t see it.

“I sent you a package. I’m not sure if it will have reached you in the snow. Merry Christmas, Jillian.”

“Merry Christmas,” Holtzmann says again, as Rebecca hangs up.

Resisting the urge to just let go of the receiver and hope it pings back into place (previous experiments conclude that it _won’t_ but that doesn’t mean it _never_ will), Holtz jumps up and replaces the phone, before quickly bundling herself up in a jumper and her trusty leather jacket, slipping on some shoes, and heading for the door. She may as well check the mail box - it’s been a few days since she even went down to the ground floor, let alone opened her pigeon hole.

She pulls open the door with a leather-gloved hand, and stops in her tracks as she sees what’s sitting on her door mat.

The plate is plain, and covered in foil, but there’s only _one_ person who could possibly have left it. There’s a note on top, folded neatly in half, with her name in neat handwriting across the front. Holtzmann pauses, swallows hard, and bends to retrieve the plate. She peels the note off and opens it.

_“Holtzmann,_

_I’m so sorry, and I get it if you can’t forgive me. I’m a mess.  
I didn’t want you to go hungry on Christmas Day.  
This is the only thing I know how to cook._

_Erin x”_

Holtzmann stares at the note for a long time, her trip down to the mail box entirely forgotten. She traces her finger over the soft curves of her name in Erin’s handwriting, the kiss at the very bottom of the note.

She doesn’t know what to feel.

She peels the foil off the plate, and can’t help but laugh.

It’s an omelette, but the way it’s been arranged on the plate, there’s a mushroom nose, cherry tomato eyes, and there’s a load of cheese arranged into a smile. It’s still warm, indicating that Erin didn’t drop it off all that long ago.

Holtzmann turns back into her apartment.

-

After eating the omelette - which is actually pretty good, as far as omelettes go - Holtz goes down to the mailbox. She whistles as she bounces down the stairs, keys jingling. She pauses when she reaches the floor Erin’s apartment is on, but only for a moment, looking down the hall, and then continuing down.

Her mailbox is pretty small, and when she manages to wiggle the key into the slot properly, and it opens up, the package inside takes up the entire metal box. It’s fortunate that there’s nobody else to send her mail. She manoeuvres the package out, with difficulty, and closes her box, before heading back upstairs.

Tearing the package open with her teeth, Holtz throws herself onto the couch, and pulls back the cardboard flaps. She untucks the tissue paper lid, and actually lets out a cheer when she sees the contents. Alongside two old volumes - one on black holes, the other a poetry anthology - which she sets aside carefully, there’s a huge box of cinnamon graham crackers, two boxes of holiday-themed toaster pastries, and a packet of candy-caned flavour Flipz pretzels. Wrapped in brown paper, there’s one final item, and she pulls it out, undoing the string with her teeth.

_“I don’t condone junk food… R.G.”_

Holtzmann grins, pulling back the crumpled paper to reveal a heavy fruit cake, baked to perfection by Rebecca. Just like every Christmas. The sight of it alone makes tears spring to Holtzmann’s eyes, but she blinks them away quickly.

In a split-second decision, Holtz repacks the box, and tucks it under her arm, grabbing her keys, and heading back out the door.

She finds herself outside 14B before she really knows what she’s doing. She hesitates. If Erin wanted to see her, she would have knocked instead of just leaving the omelette. But she didn’t. She probably wants to be left alone. Holtzmann has already done enough damage, after all. She sighs, rubbing at her neck nervously, before giving in and knocking on the door.

Such a long time passes that Holtzmann turns to leave, but then she catches the door opening out of the corner of her eye and halts.

“Holtzmann, wait!” Erin calls after her.

She spins round and almost drops the box she’s still carrying.

Erin’s wrapped in a towel, her hair dripping, face completely bare. She looks just as surprised to see Holtzmann, just as unsure.

“Erin,” she says, thickly, ”we’ve got to stop meeting like this,”

God, her smile is like sunshine, and Holtzmann can’t drag her eyes away, even after everything.

“Wait, your shower’s working?”

Erin’s mouth forms into an ‘o’ and she blushes right down to her neck, “it… it is. It started working this-this mo—“ she sighs, buries her head in her hands, and she looks just like she did the night before, and it strikes Holtzmann right in the chest, but then she lifts her face and she looks sheepish rather than distressed, “it started working the day after you came to look at it.”

“But you still came up to…”

“Yeah…” Erin’s gaze drops to the carpet, “you probably hate me but…”

“No!” Holtzmann blurts.

“You don’t?” Erin asks, frowning.

Holtzmann shakes her head, tugging anxiously on her ear, shifting the package up higher on her hip. They stand there awkwardly for a moment, and it finally dawns on Holtz… Erin had continued to come up to use the shower even though _hers had been working._

But that can’t mean what she thinks it means, what she _hopes_ it means because…

…because Erin had told her to leave.

Erin had kissed her, though. There had been a kiss which _she_ instigated. And when Holtzmann said she wanted to kiss her again, Erin _had_ said she wanted her to.

But she’d also told her to leave.

“Anyhooooo,” Holtzmann says, clearing her throat awkwardly, before shoving the package towards Erin, “it’sChristmasDayandIdon’twanttospenditaloneandalso…” she pauses, for breath, seeing the way Erin raises her eyebrows, her words coming out all jumbled, “I was sent this package of… _stuff_ and I wanted to share it with you.”

Erin takes the package hesitantly, turning it over and pulling open the flaps. She laughs when she sees the contents.

“I haven’t watched Rudolph yet,” Holtz says, elaborating only when Erin looks blankly at her, “tradition. We could watch it together?”

Erin smiles, holding the box close to her chest and nodding, “sure.”

-

Without a word, Erin goes to the fridge and gets out two bottles of craft beer - pausing to take the caps off _before_ handing one over to Holtzmann - and then excuses herself to go get dressed. Holtz sinks into the now familiar couch, and lays snacks out on the coffee table, before noticing the single personal item that has now appeared - a Christmas Card. It’s a typical, traditional card, a picturesque snow-scene with ‘seasons greetings’ in script at the bottom, carefully propped up in front of the television. She wonders who sent it, whether it’s the only card Erin got this year, if that’s why it’s the only one displayed.

When Erin emerges from the bedroom, she’s wearing dark blue jeans, and a sweater with little snowflakes on it. Her hair has started to dry with a very slight wave. She looks softer, somehow, and Holtzmann has to drag her eyes away from her, has to remind herself that staring is rude.

“No tiny bow ties today?” she asks, with a lop-sided grin.

Erin blushes, and god she’s so pretty when she blushes, so pretty when she does _literally anything._

“No,” Erin says, simply, sitting down next to her, the gap between them minimal. She leans across to take a candy, and the sleeve of her sweater brushes ever so lightly across Holtzmann’s leg, the contact lasting for a millisecond, but Holtzmann feels it in her bones.

“What’s going on in that beautiful head of yours?” Holtzmann asks, watching Erin’s profile as she swallows, as her hands move uneasily in her lap. She’s terrible at taking compliments, the blush rising from her throat all the way up to her cheeks as her lips quirk ever so slightly into a smile.

“I don’t know what we’re doing,” Erin says, slowly.

Holtzmann frowns, “eating candy? Watching an animated Christmas classic?”

Erin glances at the blank screen of the television that remains switched off and then, finally, meets Holtzmann’s eye, “I didn’t invite you in for…” she bites her lip, gaze dropping down to her hands in her lap, “I don’t know what I invited you in for.”

“My sparkling personality?” Holtzmann jokes, though her throat is feeling tight, a heavy lump making it hard to swallow, her heart racing.

Erin laughs, looks up at her through her eyelashes, “I didn’t even know you could feel this way about somebody you don’t know. It’s so… confusing. I’m so sorry for making you leave last night, for kissing you and then sending you away, that’s really not… I’m just… a mess.”

Holtz swallows, fights the urge to take Erin’s face in her hands, to stop her from talking. She’s caught up in everything Erin’s saying, in the heaviness behind the words. She _feels_ things. Holtzmann feels things too, things she thinks she shouldn’t, things that she’s not good at putting into words, only into sloppy actions.

Everything about this situation is making her want to run.

She can’t help but think Erin feels the same way.

“I don’t break rules, I don’t do things without thoroughly planning them out first, but I didn’t plan for you, and I didn’t plan to feel this way about a…” Erin lets out a breath in a _woosh_ , props her head up in her hands, elbows on her knees, “it still feels like it’s wrong. Like I shouldn’t want to kiss you because you’re—“

“A hologram? A robot? An alien?” Holtzmann cuts her off, “Erin, I should tell you… there’s a small chance I _am_ one of those things.”

It elicits the response she wants, and Erin laughs, rolling her eyes, though Holtzmann knows where she was going, feels the familiarity behind Erin’s words. This isn’t her first rodeo. This isn’t her first time dealing with a girl who has buried her own sexuality, her own wants, deep down inside of herself.

Just because she seems 100% comfortable in her own sexuality, in her own skin, doesn’t mean she _is_.

She doesn’t know how to communicate that, though, so she doesn’t. At least not verbally. She leans forward, moves one hand to Erin’s jaw, gently turns her head so they’re facing each other. There’s enough space between them for her to drink in Erin’s whole expression before she moves closer, enough space for Erin to say no.

She doesn’t.

Erin’s eyes flicker closed and Holtzmann takes that as a sign. She kisses her softly, at first, a feather-light touch. One that Erin can move away from if she wants to.

She doesn’t.

She lets out this soft mewling noise somewhere deep in the back of her throat, and all it does is spur Holtzmann on further. Moving her hand to Erin’s waist, she moves closer, twisting herself so she’s practically kneeling on the couch, one hand tilting Erin’s face up for better access. She kisses her slowly, takes the time to map her out, pulling back a little to gaze at her, before going back in. It feels like an entirely new experience, kissing like this, languid and sweet and like they have all the time in the world, but still with that intensity like something incredible is just beginning.

When Erin’s tongue brushes ever so slightly against her lips, Holtzmann’s mouth opens, partially in surprise, and partially as in invitation. Erin is hesitant - Holtzmann can feel her trembling under her hands, Erin’s body turned now so that Holtzmann is practically straddling her on the small uncomfortable couch. She can feel Erin’s heart pounding in her chest, the beat matching her own in rhythm.

They pull apart, and their breathing is ragged, Erin’s hair messy from Holtzmann’s fingers moving through it, her face pink, eyes blown and dark.

“I guess I’m not a hologram after all,” Holtzmann says, her lips quirking up into a grin, “jury is still out on the other two.”

Erin doesn’t laugh. Her expression is hungry, and she doesn’t give Holtz much of a chance to catch her breath, before she’s drawing her back towards her, hands cupped around her face, mouth firm and hot against hers.

**Author's Note:**

> I struggle with Holtzmann's POV so I really hope this is passable!


End file.
